Friday 15th September: Notting Hill Carnival 2017, Soundsystems & Vibes

In addition to the carnival parade of costumes and mas there are the static sound systems mapped along the route.  Here is an overview illustrating the old-school original names such as King Tubby's & Glady Wax to the newer brands on the agenda such as BoilerRoom and Red Bull sponsoring stages.  It's absolutely mind-blowing that people travel from all over the world and across this country to gather in streets of W10 London for the unified love of the same thing.  Now why can't we all agree on politics and religion and live peacefully like this year's event proved is possible?!  80 languages are spoken in our city and we all communicate as one in the motion of music and dance............ just another reason I think Carnival is a model for humanity as a whole!

Friday 2nd September: Notting Hill Carnival 2016, Soundsystems & steel pan floats

Since 1973 when Leslie Palmer invited local Jamaican soundsystems to take part in the Trinidadian Notting Hill Carnival, it's steel-pan soundscape changed forever.   Now the official map of W9 includes 38 static stages dotted around the streets of the procession.  There's even an APP to navigate your way between them all.  However if you can't physically join the festivities on the day you can sit back in the comfort of your own home and stream the scene live and direct.  I think FACT TV teamed up with ToddlaT but for the most part it's thanks to the initiative of pioneering broadcasters BoilerRoom who worked with the establishment to cover 10.  

Despite the cultural event being the largest street festival in Europe it hasn't ever had equivalent coverage of other music festivals on the major networks.  Until now.  Here you can see the print design on the commemorative BoilerRoom T-Shirt from Stussy using a collage of carnival imagery sourced by Eve Dawoud and the listings from Aba-Shanti to Saxon Sound.  Here's the orange speaker stack at Channel One, my friend Chippy dancing high on a railing at Deviation and a family enjoying their party packs with horns and bandannas.  I managed to visit a few inbetween by Patron duties on the parade, and dip into Different Strokes to see Lizzie King & Anna Lomax's set design ......... and a quick skank at YoYo.

I'm absolutely gutted another year is over already but this year I can give it a wheel (that's a re-wind, for my older readers) and watch it all back on BoilerRoom here. 

Thanks so Blaise Bellville for the T-Shirt when Im sure he had 10000 more important requests to be dealing with!  G.